CTV - The threat that made no sense.

I was not surprised to see Bell and Rogers on the front page of the Toronto Star this morning scrapping like school boys right in front of the headmaster. The head master in this case is the chair of the CRTC, Konrad von Finckenstien. His patients obviously under duress as he tried to understand the lame plea of CTV's, Paul Sparkes that the business model of the CTV stations is "broken" in this economy. They need fees for local stations to augment their broken business model. Yeah, right.

Rogers says, "Ya, rite!" They feel that there is no reason that CTV should get anymore than they do from advertising. After all, Rogers provides them the means to reach viewers, what they do to capitalize on them is up to the broadcaster, not the cable carrier. It is not like this is a new model. CTV lined up with every other major player to get coverage on local carriers like Rogers and told the CRTC that it was a fool-proof business model...and guess what? On that basis, they were granted licenses for local broadcast. They were not dragged into it. They saw it as a license to print money. Now, as the world of TV changes, CTV finds themselves in a situation where they have waaaaaaaaaay too much overhead, waaaaaaaaay too little focus on what media means in this day and age, and no signs of shrinking their top-heavy executive to "fix their broken business model". No. They want more money. They do not want to remap their business at all. They want the head master to find in their favor and make Rogers hand over cash for content on their cable systems.

Prepare to see more of this kind of volleying near the net. Last year Jim Shaw sent SHAWkwaves when he, a distributor of cable and satellite broadcast, started to shut down broadcasters on his system stating he wanted a larger slice of the consumer pie. What a cowboy. Why do I like him so much?

It seems that these broadcasters' eyes are shut tight about the realities of TV business in this era of content-everywhere and a million channel universe that they (CTV and others) created out of sheer greed and not the need for more varied content.

When I hear that the CRTC and I are both frustrated about the same thing I have to scratch my head. That rarely happens. As a producer, I am constantly amazed with the CRTC's ability to let these big guys get away with murder. Today I felt like I was sitting on the same page as the commission saying: " Please. You guys fix it yourself. You wanted the local licenses so if you don't use them, we will give them to other parties." I hope they do. Local TV could use a resurrection in the worst way right now and CTV seems blind to any solutions that may work.